It is also possible to turn variable resistors into on-off switches. No resistance occurs when either two points have no connectivity or full connectivity (like a wire linking them). To make added steady resistors into a switch, connect one side of a switch terminal to one side of the resistor, and the other side of the resistor to the other terminal; when the switch engages, the voltage goes low or high, and it is engaged. This can also be used to turn the analog stick resistors into directional switches. Note each signal will need its own set of steady resistors. Also note this is much more difficult when the analog signal requires higher resistance for engaging.

Am I interpreting correctly that you could, in essence, connect resistors to the analog stick points to make it act like a d-pad? I've been searching other forums, but couldn't find if this has been done or how.

I'm mainly curious if this would be an alternative for someone who damaged the d-pad connections on their PCB. (I'm not to this point yet, but it's still early ).

Well, after correcting my botch on the lifted d-pad connection, I think I hosed myself. I made an error soldering the resistor to the trigger points, so I attempted to desolder and remove the resistor to repair it.

Unfortunately, both points lifted off the PCB. I don't think there are any alternate points.

For the middle hole (R1 on RDC's diagrams on x-box scene forum), I see where the trace comes off of that hole. In theory, if I was skilled enough, I might be able to solder to that trace. However, I have no idea where I would solder the other side of the resistor to. It doesn't look as if there's another solder point for the bottom hole (R3 on RDC's diagrams).

Anyone know if there's any hope at this point? I kind've think I'm screwed with this PCB, but it doesn't hurt to ask.

I have hacked maybe 8 360 wireless controllers and can definately tell you that you do not need the resistors for LT and RT. But like you said, it removes the pressure sensitivity. It is either on or off, which is the way a fight stick should be.

Could you guys elaborate on what you mean here? Do you mean that you're just not using the triggers at all, or is there some way to use the triggers without the resistors? If so, does that apply to the Madcatz PCBs as well?

Even though I'm 31, I suddenly feel like I need you to explain this to me like I'm six

I feel like I've read everywhere that you need the resistors in place (if you removed the triggers) so that the triggers don't appear to be activated. Am I misinterpreting that? For example, from Slagcoin:

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The problem in removing variable resistors is it leaves zero voltage. Because of this the PCB will usually consider them engaged. Triggers will be usually be viewed as held in, and analog sticks will be viewed as a diagonal

EDIT: Jeez, sorry. I've ready this thread, like, 15 times now. Maybe I needed to do 20. I just saw this reply to a similar question:

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10K is for removing the trigger pot. If you take off the trigger pot I'm pretty sure you HAVE to have the 10K resistor.

I know the MadCatz pads will function normally without the trigger pots, but you will need resistors and a transitor to hack the triggers.

I removed the trigger pots so I could hook up the triggers to a button on my joystick. So I do need the resistors.

There's a new version of the Wired controller board now, not a Common Ground setup like the New Wireless one is, but it does use a 'Common Line' for all of the buttons (most likely has voltage on it so they go high)

Can someone explain the difference? Does this affect how you do the wiring for the wired vs. the wireless controller?

I know the solder points are slightly different for wired vs. wireless, but does the "Common Line" still get wired to the ground line coming from the joystick buttons? Or does the common line have to get wired to a ground on the pcb, and then from that ground to the ground on the joystick/buttons?

I hope this makes sense. I feel like I'm getting slightly different info (or maybe just terminology) from different sources, and I'm getting a tad confused.

Perfect, thank you for that explanation. I got the whole "4 versions" thing, but then when I saw the wireless referred to as "common ground" and the wired one as "common line" I started getting a little bit

I truly appreciate all the assistance. And I also appreciate the lack of any condescending attitude that I've gotten in some responses on other sites' forums.

Hey everybody. I'm new to the forum but I've been watching for some time now. I (like many others I'm sure) have become impatient with waiting for Madcatz to get their act together and ship the rest of these Fightsticks. I guess they severely underestimated the demand for these, which is odd since SFIV is a pretty obvious safe bet for a Fightstick user base. So I've decided to go ahead and build my own.

So I just picked up the Joytech Neo SE controller and was wondering if anyone had hacked one of these already. I'm looking at the trigger assembly and am planning on leaving them on the PCB as suggested by HarumaN. But I don't know (specifically on this PCB) which posts to attach the wires to for the triggers. I know one should go to ground and one to one of the others but which is ground and which post does the other wire need to be attached to? Any help with this PCB is greatly appreciated.

Sorry, Gizmo. I don't have an answer for you, though I think I've seen talk of that PCB on the Shoryuken.com "padhacking thread."

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Also, thanks to Haruman and everyone else who had help/advice. It appears that I've got my fightstick working with the Official Wired controller PCB. I haven't gotten to try it out on the ol' XBox yet, but I plugged it into a PC and tested it, and it appears to be working. (Knock on wood.)

Got to play with my new fightstick last night, and it was a thing o' beauty. Thanks again for the advice. Speaking of which...

I've already got another fightstick in the works, and was thinking about moving to the Madcatz PCB. I'd like to be able to connect to the triggers as I did with my stick. I found the triggers (mainly the disassembly/disconnecting the POT) to be the most problematic part of my hacking job. Because the setup for the Madcatz stick is even more complex with the two resistors and a switch, I'm a little leery.

Looking for the humble opinion of anyone who has connected to the triggers on a newer Madcatz PCB: If I made it through hacking the official wired PCB, do you think the Madcatz trigger thing will be any harder than anything I've already done?

Other than the picture from Haruman earlier in this thread, are there any other diagrams that show exactly how the resistors and switch are connected to the trigger point?

I'm gonna give a big shout out to HarumaN and everyone else in this thread for all the help & info. I got my first of 2 sticks up and running tonight and it's awesome. Still haven't figured out the sync button, but I need to open the back to change the batteries anyway.

I do need some troubleshooting help, though. I suspect I've zeroed out the triggers wrong. I can tell since in SF4 if I set the triggers to "No action" the stick works fine, but if I assign any action (i.e. it starts checking the triggers) some of my other buttons don't work. It's an easy fix in SF4, but in other games (like SamSho or KOF) the buttons just shift around actions and you can't actually turn the triggers off.

What resistors should I have in the trigger on a new version MS wireless? Is this even the reason?

There are a lot of posts about the triggers in there. It seems to be a common problem. I think that the common-ground version of the wireless one needs a slightly different resistor hookup than the rest. At least that's what I've gathered by reading that forum. Still uses the 10K resistor, but I think it either has to go between two different soldering points, than the other versions of the official controller, or something to that effect.

1) With my cheap-ass analog multimeter set on 1K Ohms (resistance test) if I put the positive lead on any one of the red pads and the negative on any other red pad I get 0 Ohms resistance, I'm assuming that means this is a common ground controller. Please please correct me if I'm wrong on that, I'm new to this.

2) If I put the positive lead on any red pad and the negative on any blue pad I get 5 Ohms, I'm assuming that means the blue pads are the signal pads. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong.

3) If I put the positive on any red pad and put the negative on the middle post (marked in yellow) for either of the trigger POTS I get a reading of approximately .5 Ohms, and on the bottom post on the triggers (marked in orange) I get approximately 1.5 Ohms. Can I safely say that the yellow post is the "Low" and the Orange is the "High"? And if I leave the POTS on the board glued into the same position they would be in with the trigger UN-pressed and then hooked up the button to the orange post (High?) would that effectively make my pushbutton act as a digital button in place of the triggers?

1) With my cheap-ass analog multimeter set on 1K Ohms (resistance test) if I put the positive lead on any one of the red pads and the negative on any other red pad I get 0 Ohms resistance, I'm assuming that means this is a common ground controller. Please please correct me if I'm wrong on that, I'm new to this.

2) If I put the positive lead on any red pad and the negative on any blue pad I get 5 Ohms, I'm assuming that means the blue pads are the signal pads. Again, please correct me if I'm wrong.

3) If I put the positive on any red pad and put the negative on the middle post (marked in yellow) for either of the trigger POTS I get a reading of approximately .5 Ohms, and on the bottom post on the triggers (marked in orange) I get approximately 1.5 Ohms. Can I safely say that the yellow post is the "Low" and the Orange is the "High"? And if I leave the POTS on the board glued into the same position they would be in with the trigger UN-pressed and then hooked up the button to the orange post (High?) would that effectively make my pushbutton act as a digital button in place of the triggers?

HarumaN this is what someone on another forum said. Does this ring true to you? Or is he full of it?

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Originally Posted by Gizzmo0815 View PostHere's how I'm going to wire it:

http://i652.photobucket.com/albums/u...g?t=1239834902Everything looks good, except your LT/RT. The LT and RT signals are the middle post, that you have marked yellow, and they are grounded when not pressed, and high when pressed. In order to use them with a common ground, you'll need to remove the pots and use two resistors and a transistor per trigger. There's a thread on hacking the madcatz triggers specifically, let me find it and I'll edit this.

I used my multimiter to figure out which post was low. I then wired it up like the diagram below, but I am not getting any response when I test it with my multimiter or when I plug into my computer and try to test it that way. I'm hoping it's just some dumb noob mistake. Can you see anything that looks wrong?

For the record, I did remove the pot. I'm hoping that wasn't a F-up on my part.

I'm still half asleep because I was up 'til midnight trying to get the darn thing to work. Argh.

According to someone at shoryuken.com, they think that my schematic was right. I actualy drew that up based on what I had already wired, so it should be completely representative of my wiring job.

A couple things jut to make sure I'm not an idiot:

I assume the triggers are independent, right? What I mean is that I only wired one and then tested it. I didn't do both yet. Would that matter?

On the "properties" screen on my PC, the triggers affect the "Z axis" property. I assume that it would move significantly when the circuit was closed (if working properly). I noticed a couple times that it fluctuated very slightly when I made the connection.

Sorry if I'm being a pest with these posts. I sort've obsess about this stuff until I figure it out. I'm funny like that.

Here's a quote from a post on Shoryuken.com. The colored text was my doing:

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You need the npn if the triggers are high active, you don't if they're low active. Most of the recent ones are high active. Dig out the multimeter, and check the voltage of the center pin of the triggers, both unpressed and pressed. You can follow slagcoin's site with a single resistor per trigger if it's not got any voltage when you press the trigger, but if it does carry a voltage when you press the trigger, you need an NPN setup.

Does that potentially mean that some of them aren't high-active? I just assumed all the newer ones were. I didn't test the voltage before removing the trigger to know for sure. D'oh!